Ex-medical researcher gets life term in wife’s cyanide death

The Associated Press

Published 2:47 pm, Wednesday, February 4, 2015

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FILE - In this Oct. 23, 2014 file photo, Dr. Robert Ferrante, center, is escorted to court by Allegheny County Sheriff deputies during jury selection for his trial on charges of the 2013 killing of his neurologist wife with cyanide in Pittsburgh. On Wednesday Feb. 4, 2015, Ferrante was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without possibility of parole in the cyanide poisoning death of his wife, Dr. Autumn Klein. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, FILE) less

FILE - In this Oct. 23, 2014 file photo, Dr. Robert Ferrante, center, is escorted to court by Allegheny County Sheriff deputies during jury selection for his trial on charges of the 2013 killing of his ... more

Photo: AP

Ex-medical researcher gets life term in wife’s cyanide death

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PITTSBURGH >> A former University of Pittsburgh Medical Center researcher has been sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole in the cyanide poisoning death of his neurologist wife.

Sixty-six-year-old Robert Ferrante was convicted in the fall of first-degree murder in the April 2013 death of 41-year-old Dr. Autumn Klein. Prosecutors said he laced her energy drink with cyanide.

The victim’s mother, Lois Klein, said in a statement read in court Wednesday by an assistant prosecutor that the murder had robbed her and her husband of their only child.

She said, “The light of our lives has now been extinguished.”

Ferrante has steadfastly denied poisoning his wife. He declined an opportunity to speak in court.